Greetings, fellow philosophers.
I have been running this idea through my head for a while now and am finally getting around to putting it into action. This marks what will hopefully be the first of a weekly installment here in the IF of EH that will bring a smile to your face and perhaps add thoughts to rumble around in your mind.
Louis L'Amour is best known for writing some of the greatest Westerns of all time, and deservedly so. Lesser known among his works is a novel, called The Walking Drum, set in the 12th century about a French Corsair (that's gentleman pirate, for you uninitiated) named Mathurin Kerbouchard who is traveling the world to exact vengeance on the man who killed his father and destroyed his home. Not the most original of plot premises, I know, but what makes this book one of the Greats is the philosophical meanderings that Mathurin goes into regarding all sorts of topics from religion to politics to love. I strongly encourage everyone to read it, but in the mean time, I will be posting some of his tidbits of wisdom here ever Saturday/Sunday (depending on how late at night it is) for your pleasure. Because like Mathurin "...Learning to me is a way of life. I do not learn to obtain position or reputation. I only want only to know."
Tonight's topic: Love! (Okay, so there'll be lots of these, I'm just going with the first one. Mat got around. Freaking James Bond of the Byzantine Empire.)
"What is love? Perhaps for a time I loved her [a woman he courted earlier]; perhaps in a way I love her still. Perhaps when a man has held a woman in his arms, there is a little of her with him forever. Who is to say?
A ruined catle, an ancient garden, a moon rising over a fountain...love comes easily at such a time. Perhaps we loved each other then; perhaps we do not love each other now, but we each have a memory.
Love is a moment of stillness that sometimes a word can shatter to fragments, or love can be a thing that endures, a rich deep current that flows unending down the years.
I do not think one should demand that love be forever. Perhaps it is better that it not be forever. How can one answer for more than the moment? Who knows what strange tides may sweep us away? What depths there may be or twists and turns and shallows? Each life sails a separate course, although sometimes, and this is the best of times, two lives may move along together until the end of time.
Listen to the music out there. Is the song less beautiful because it has an end? I believe each of us wishes to find the song that does not end, but for me, that time is not now."
This has been an IFoEH production of The Wisdom of Kerbouchard. Tune in next time, same place, roughly same time. =)
Yeah, I'm still here.
12 years ago
2 comments:
I applaud like a pleased child. :D
CS, as always I'm embarrassingly admiring of your huge vocabulary even in casual writing, and of your ability to draw someone in with the way you turn a phrase. Thanks for making these thoughts public, seriously.
The words that really caught my attention were about love being a silent, delicate thing and yet in some instances something that endures. I think Monsieur-L'Amour-through-Kerbouchard portrayed the prettiest picture of the world's idea of love. It is probably so pleasing because it is a shadow of the agape love God has for us and that we can in turn have for Him and other people. It's self-sacrificing, valuing the other person and looking out for their best interest, an action and decision rather than an emotion, though emotions usually follow. Obviously our debonair Corsair didn't have this noble, passionate love for whatever floozy he chose to take advantage of, but maybe he was looking for it.
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